Trump Announces Plan to Ban All Transgender People From the Military (Update)

UPDATE (July 27, 2017 1:30 p.m. EST): On Thursday, July 27, the day after President Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce a ban on transgender people in the military, the Pentagon announced it has not changed its transgender policy.

“There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance,” Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking U.S. military officer, wrote in a letter to military leadership.

"In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect," Dunford added in the letter, first reported by Reuters. "As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions."

This post originally appeared on July 26, 2017.

President Donald Trump took to Twitter the morning of Wednesday, July 26 to announce a major policy shift: According to the commander-in-chief, transgender people will no longer be allowed in the U.S. military.

In a series of three tweets, Trump wrote: "After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you."

This is a direct change from the Obama administration's stance, as former defense secretary Ashton Carter issued a ruling last year to allow transgender people to serve openly in the military. The directive also provided them coverage for any care their doctors deemed necessary, including gender affirmation surgery and hormone therapy. This ruling was considered a major step forward for the LGBTQ community. Since then, it's been the military's policy to allow service members to be open about their gender identities, although it had put off making a decision about whether to allow openly trans people to join.

Estimates vary, but according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, there are as many as 134,000 transgender veterans of the U.S. military and with over 15,000 trans people actively serving. But numbers aside, this is a huge step backwards for equality — something that many, including LGBTQ advocacy groups, are now noting on Twitter.